Dance Heginbotham (DH) is a New York-based contemporary dance company committed to supporting, producing, and sustaining the work of choreographer John Heginbotham. With an emphasis on collaboration, DH enriches national and international communities with its unique blend of inventive, thoughtful, and rigorous dance theater works.

Founded in 2011, DH has quickly established itself as one of the most adventurous and exciting new companies on the contemporary dance scene, and is celebrated for its vibrant athleticism, humor, and theatricality, as well as its commitment to collaboration. DH has shared the stage with music icons including Alarm Will Sound, Brooklyn Rider, Gabriel Kahane and Shara Worden, and is currently working on a new evening-length work with beloved author and illustrator Maira Kalman.

Well-known for his 14-year tenure as a dancer with Mark Morris Dance Group, Artistic Director John Heginbotham creates work known for its “tight formal structure and inventive movement, bolstered by a disarming wit and strangeness” (The New Yorker). In recognition of his unique artistic vision, John received the 2014 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award.

DH had its world premiere in January of 2012 at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and has since been presented by Baryshnikov Arts Center, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carolina Performing Arts, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. In the spring of 2016, the company toured to Indonesia, Laos, and the Philippines as cultural ambassadors of the United States with the DanceMotion USA℠ program, a project of the US Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), produced by BAM.

John Heginbotham

Photo: Janelle Jones,courtesy of The Watermill Center

Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, John Heginbotham is a Brooklyn-based choreographer, performer, and teacher.

He graduated from The Juilliard School in 1993 with a BFA in Dance, and was awarded the Martha Hill Prize for Sustained Achievement in Dance. John was a member of the Mark Morris Dance Group (MMDG) from 1998 – 2012, performing lead roles in L’Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato; The Hard Nut; Four Saints in Three Acts; and Romeo and Juliet: On Motifs of Shakespeare. During his time with MMDG, he toured across the United States and abroad alongside artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax, The Bad Plus, and Zakir Hussain, and performed with opera companies including The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, and the English National Opera.

In June 2014, John was awarded the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award in recognition of his unique choreographic vision and promise. He is currently a Fellow at NYU's Center for Ballet and the Arts and is a two-time recipient of the Jerome Robbins Foundation New Essential Works (NEW) Fellowship (2010, 2012). John and Dance Heginbotham have been invited to participate in creative residencies at The Banff Centre, Baryshnikov Arts Center, Brooklyn College, CUNY Kingsborough, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, and the Watermill Center.

Live music is an integral part of John’s creative vision. leading to collaborations with the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound, string quartet Brooklyn Rider, the Raymond Scott Orchestrette, art/pop duo Fischerspooner; composers Tyondai Braxton, Ethan Iverson, and Colin Jacobsen; pianist Yegor Shevtsov; and vocalists Jesse Blumberg, Gabriel Kahane, Shara Worden (also known as My Brightest Diamond).

In addition to his work with Dance Heginbotham, John is active as a freelance choreographer. In 2015 John choreographed Daniel Fish's highly-acclaimed Bard Summerscape production of Oklahoma! and was invited back in 2016 to create the evening-length work Fantasque in collaborationwith renowned puppeteer Amy Trompetter. In July 2014, John created his first ballet, Angels’ Share, for Atlanta Ballet’s Wabi Sabi Project. In December 2013, he choreographed Isaac Mizrahi’s Peter and the Wolf for the Guggenheim Museum’s Works and Process Series, which has become an annual holiday event. John’s work has been featured in the music videos of Fischerspooner and NICKCASEY, and in the live performances of cabaret artists Lady Rizo and Our Lady J.

John’s growing list of opera commissions include: Candide with the Orlando Philharmonic (2016); The Magic Flute at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, directed by Isaac Mizrahi (2014); Handel’s Alceste with the American Classical Orchestra (2014); Macbeth with the Manhattan School of Music Opera Studies Department (2014); and Maria de Buenos Aires at the Cork Opera House (2013).

As a teacher, John offers dance master classes in the United States and abroad. He has taught at institutions including Princeton University, Barnard College, George Mason University, Laban Centre in London, School of Visual Arts, University of California, Berkeley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Washington. John is creating a new work for The Juilliard School Dance Division's New Dances program and is the Director of the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble. John is a founding teacher of Dance for PD®, an ongoing collaboration between the Mark Morris Dance Group and the Brooklyn Parkinson Group.